Wrecked
by AmericanWordsmith
Summary: Two years after losing her mother and Elena, Bonnie and Caroline only have each other. When Caroline travels on Spring Break alone, she gets swept up in a fierce tempest and stuck for dead on a mysterious island with magical properties. As Bonnie's magic proves unable to locate her, it's up to Klaus Mikaelson to bring Caroline home. Klaroline, slightly AU, smut in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

_**Notes on AU / Canon:**_ _Picks up a couple years after the ends of TVD season 6 and TO season 2. TVD side is canon except for no heretics / Salvatore-mom plot. TO side is basically AU with no Hope, Hayley, Camille, or Dahlia. Klaus and Marcel are ruling New Orleans peacefully together._

* * *

 _ **Chapter 1**_

She wasn't sure how many hours she spent on the beach staring at the plane's wing still bobbing in the water. Up and down, up and down. Cresting waves would occasionally obscure it's white sheen and Caroline could tell it was steadily floating further and further out to sea. The sky was still raging stormy above her and the ocean was a sickly greenish-grey in its turmoil. None of the other parts of the plane - a small thing the pilot had proudly told her was a Cessna 172 Skyhawk - remained to be seen.

When they'd crashed into the water, apparently the plane had made it at least several miles out from the storm in its descent because it still wasn't raining here on the island yet. The only signs of what was coming were the raucous discolored waves and the sky. Ferocious looking black and purple storm clouds were encroaching overhead, piling up on one another like cancerous tumors. It wasn't even windy yet, though, a true paramount example of ' _the calm before the storm.'_

But Caroline had been in the thick of the storm before the plane had been sent spiraling downwards, several miles away. It was bad, a true Shakespearean tempest. The rain had pounded against their windows hard enough, it seemed, to threaten to break them. And then, the winds had swept up their little aircraft like a piece of gumwrapper in a twister.

Caroline remembered approaching the aircraft earlier that morning with extreme trepidation. She'd been in the Philippines on a trip by herself for Spring Break. It had been about two years since her mother's death… the drama with Kai and losing Elena… her disastrous attempt at a relationship with Stefan that ended when Damon went AWOL and Stefan left her to find him. Caroline had been spending most of her days alone recently and that included her travels. Bonnie was the only person she really had left.

And Bonnie had been invited to join her on this trip to the Amanpulo Resort but Bonnie had declined. Sometimes it felt like they were both so torn up over everything they'd lost that there were brief periods where they couldn't even look to one another for solace. They needed space. So, Caroline had understood why Bonnie didn't join her. And, though she greatly missed her best friend in this exact moment on the beach, she was even more glad that Bonnie wasn't stuck here with her now.

She had spent a luxurious week and a half on a sunny beach and in a _very_ exclusive suite. Swimming, back massages, fruity cocktails, and the occasional blood bag made up her trip. Plus a lot of dancing with hot human men she couldn't understand and would take back to her hotel room… never having to worry because _she_ was the predator. She'd only had to compel herself the suite and airline tickets. Everything else - from the men to messages - she charmed her way into all by herself. Ever since she and Bonnie had lost almost everyone they cared about in some way or another, Caroline overall, though, had been less strict with herself on how she dealt with compulsion and what it could get her… particularly during times like Spring Break.

The day before her trip back was scheduled, a hurricane warning blew up out of nowhere. Caroline's flight was canceled almost immediately. The category five storm - bequeathed Hurricane Nicholas, ironically enough - was going to keep her from making it back to the State's for _days_ and she'd miss the start of her term. School was honestly one of the only things Caroline had left to cling to in her life anymore. Bonnie was withdrawn and depressed and, between the two of them moping around constantly, Caroline needed _something_ to focus on.

So, feeling out of control she made an irrational decision. Caroline hired a local pilot of her own to take her when all the airports shut down. Local flights were still being allowed at the time, to pick up medical and food supplies in preparation for the storm. The pilot she found would be making a run to California anyway to pick up a shipment of rations from the US National Guard _and_ he seemed confident that they'd miss the storm easily. Obviously, the tiny aircraft they'd hopped into gave Caroline brief cause for concern but… he'd _insisted_ they would miss the storm.

But, of course, the storm chased them.

The rain started first and the pilot assured her it was all normal and that he'd been through much worse. Never mind the fact that the water was pelting hard enough against their windows to almost sound like hale, Caroline decided to grin and bear it. What else could she do?

Then the winds had picked up. Their plane swayed, caught up in forces stronger than it could handle. Caroline screamed and the pilot muttered out a series of curses in a language she didn't understand. Alarms began going off in the cabin and Caroline had seen smoke from out of their window. By the time the pilot tried the radio, it was out completely, no longer picking up a signal. And then, as if things could possibly get any worse, a torrential gust of wind from the hurricane snapped off one of their wings like their aircraft was no sturdier than the fragile body of a butterfly.

Their jet was sent spiraling out of control, faster than Caroline had ever been before, so fast it was difficult to remain conscious. It was _so_ terrifying, so controlled by elements far beyond her control, that Caroline forgot for a split second that she was immortal. Her life flashed before her eyes - one image surprisingly predominant above the others… _Klaus. She had never..._

They hit the water hard that Caroline's vision blanked, her ears lost sound, and the only thing she recognized was the overwhelming scent of salt water and the shock of the cold. When they first crashed, Caroline had been submerged in water for a full five minutes, as the plane sunk lower into the ocean's depths. The water didn't flood in all the way at first and she and her pilot had to look at each other in horror as the water poured slowly in through the windows while they sank. He didn't even speak enough English for her to be able to reassure him of much. A rolling wave overturned their plane and then the water was gushing in from upside down, much faster now. Caroline unbuckled her seat-belt, catching herself before she slammed into the ceiling of the plane and immediately went to help the pilot.

Water was leaking in at the from all angles as it flooded. There was less than a couple of inches left of air in the cabin anyway. If she didn't get him out of here, he would drown. Briefly she considered giving him her blood as a precaution but promptly realized they were in the freaking _ocean_ and she didn't want to attract sharks. Caroline knew she was immortal but _sharks?_ That seemed like territory for a much older and stronger vampire. Or maybe a really strong swimmer.

Caroline didn't need to breathe but still sucked in a huge breath and she did so for the sake of her pilot when the water finally closed over them in the plane. As sound practically escaped them in the depths of the seawater, Caroline could see her pilot holding his breath. After kicking out the front window of the plane, she pulled the man out with her and began to swim, holding her breath inside of her.

She hadn't realized how quickly they'd begun to sink. They were well over a hundred feet beneath the water. Before, speeding them back up to the surface, Caroline paused to blow her breath of air into the pilot's lungs, not needing it herself as a vampire. But as she propelled them both upwards, she could feel the man trembling in her arms.

The pilot was clutching himself, shaking in a panic. His limbs were convulsing at disturbing angles, as if he was in the throes of a seizure. Caroline's eyes widened in terror, trying to keep his mouth shut for him in his panic but he opened it in a gasp anyway, still clutching himself in pain. Suddenly, Caroline realized what had happened. _The bends._ She'd raised him from the depths too quickly and the pressure difference began to kill him. She watched on hopelessly as he drowned and succumbed to the pressure at the same time in enormous pain. Not knowing what else to do, Caroline reached out to snap the man's neck, ending his pain as quickly as possible.

She had to do her best to keep herself from sobbing and inhaling water as she rose to the surface and swam to the nearest shore after that. Somehow, against all reason, they'd landed within several hundred feet of land and the crashing tide was on her side. Knowing better than to leave his blood-filled body in case she ended up somewhere remote, Caroline dragged the dead body of the pilot with her to shore.

After she finally made it to shore, exhausted, she dragged the dead pilot onto the sand next to her and watched the storm chase her once again. Caroline had the chills and she didn't know why. It must have been psychosomatic. Vampires didn't get the chills. Still, she couldn't stop trembling.

That was what she was doing over two hours after they landed - two hours by her estimation anyway - watching the last piece of the plane float away from her and shaking. The wing was still bobbing up and down in the water. There had been a couple of moments where she wanted to get up but, taking a look at the island around her, she could tell there was no point. This place was abandoned. There were no signs or sounds of life even in the furthest miles away she could hear.

The sky darkened even more considerably overhead and then Caroline realized. _Fuck,_ she was going to need shelter in the storm. Her eyes nervously cast out onto the ocean again. The wing of the plane. She needed that; she could use it. _Oh shit, why hadn't she dragged it back with her when she first swam to shore?_

It was just floating further away from her island. The sea was just growing rougher and rougher. The storm was just getting closer. It was now or never.

In the few hours she'd been sitting on the very windy beach, staring at the waves in shock, her clothes had mostly dried — granted to a disgustingly salt coated crusty state but, dry nonetheless. So, Caroline stripped off her clothes and shoes quickly. Then she dragged them along with the body of the pilot further back onto the shore. And, finally, with a brave battle cry, Caroline dashed into the cold ocean and dived into its towering waves.

The storm was much more intense now than when she first swam to shore. The ocean swelled up around her so powerfully that Caroline couldn't see. If she hadn't had vampire strength there would have been no way she wouldn't have drowned already. As it was, she was being tossed and turned by the waves, barely staying on her path towards the plane's wing. Salt water was stinging her eyes and clogging her lungs despite her best efforts to keep her mouth shut.

But she did make it to the wing and, when she got there, Caroline situated herself behind it so she could kick it back while floating on it with her torso. Holding onto the enormously heavy piece of metal, though, in the middle of the tumultuous seas, proved another impossible task and Caroline could feel her strength beginning to slip. _God, would she lose her strength and be doomed to an eternity of drowning over and over again in the sea until she washed up on shore somewhere?_

She almost thought she passed out. She may have and luck just happened to be on her side again and she was pushed to shore on the waves. Either way, Caroline was relieved to find herself, still firmly clutching the wing of the plane, washing up on shore some unknown amount of time later. It must not have been too long, she realized, because the storm _still_ hadn't hit her island. For a second she just focuses on getting her clothes back on while they're still dry.

It was not long after Caroline even assessed that, though, when the rain began pelting down in earnest, accompanied by a disturbingly loud clap of thunder. Caroline hurriedly began to wrack her brain for what information she knew about storms. Obviously, trees were _not_ the way to go typically but, it was not as if she was capable of building a soundly-structured shelter out on the beach in time before the storm hit. The hurricane winds would blow anything she built away.

Instead, Caroline looked back to the jungle behind her on the beach and spotted two shorter but thicker trees. Thinking fast, she wedged the wing of the plane between the two trees. Hopefully, they were thick enough to keep the plane wing in place through the hurricane's winds but also short enough to escape notice of the lightning.

After rigging up her _very_ makeshift shelter, Caroling pulled the pilot's body beneath the plane wing with her, just as the wind started to kick in with the rain. Seeing lightning flash overhead, Caroling took a short drink of blood from the pilot's body. She wanted to ration his blood for later but, it would be no use to her at all if a bolt of lightning fried the body so she didn't feel bad taking some now to regain even a little of her strength.

Caroline lay back in the sand and pulled the pilot's shirt off of him to pull across her eyes. The storm is about to arrive but that doesn't mean she needs to sit here and watch it happen.

* * *

Bonnie had been trying to reach Caroline since she first heard of the hurricane warnings. She _knew_ Caroline and she knew that the blonde would do anything not to miss the first day of the semester. But Caroline, of course, hadn't be answering her calls, texts, or emails which meant she'd gotten an idea in mind that she would not have been keen on sharing.

Immediately, of course, Bonnie did a location spell but was pleased to find Caroline still safely at her resort.

She kept calling though. She called both Care's international cell and the resort's phone number. The resort had no record of her stay which meant Caroline compelled her way in and used a fake name.

So, Bonnie had nothing left to do but keep an eye on the news, watching how close the hurricane was to approaching Caroline's resort. About two hours later, the weather forecast became foreboding enough for Bonnie to try calling again. And when Caroline _still_ didn't answer, she tried the location spell again.

This time… nothing picks up. It's as if Caroline has completely disappeared from the map.

"No, no, no, no…" Bonnie muttered frantically to herself, repeating the spell again and again. Nothing came up and Bonnie bit her lip, just about to cry at the thought of losing her last friend and, essentially, family member.

She thought about trying Stefan but knew he wouldn't pick up; he never did anymore. He wouldn't even know why she was calling, having no clue that Caroline was on vacation right now - that's how little they kept in touch. Not that Bonnie had even a vague clue of what she expected Stefan to do anyway...

The news reported that the hurricane hit several hours earlier than expected and they're already getting in reports of lost flights and boats. That's when Bonnie got desperate and called Klaus.

* * *

Ultimately the storm hit her even faster than she anticipated and it was every bit is chaotic on the ground. Caroline was terrified. Even a vampire feels small stuck in the middle of the most severe forces of nature with no place to protect themselves - particularly if they're as young as Caroline. Growing up on the East Coast they occasionally saw mild hurricanes or even tornadoes but… Virginia is truly just not a place of extreme weather and she'd never experienced anything of this magnitude.

In a desperate move, Caroline started digging to the sand before burrowing into it with the pilot's body which could all too easily blow away when she needs food the most. She cowered beneath the sand as the wind tossed trees and driftwood around her.

Suddenly and powerfully, she wished Klaus was there. If she was secure in his strong arms right now she would feel safe and protected. _God, why did she never go after him? She could be torn up by the wind out here or left to desiccate and he'd never know..._

Eventually, the massive winds from the hurricane tear the plane's wing from the trees and Caroline was left alone on the beach with no protection. At the edge of the island's jungle, clutching the pilot's body beneath her, as she tried fruitlessly to bury both of them further into the sand. _This is not going to work,_ she thought to herself helplessly, _I have to get out of her._ She looked to the woods behind her.

The waves were being pushed farther onto the sand by the wind so Caroline vamp-flashed herself and the body back several hundred more feet into the jungle behind the beach. There was no more time left. The tempest was here and Caroline needed to think fast to protect herself, so the jungle was her only option.

She was about thirty feet beyond the treeline when it happens. The winds picked up a piece of driftwood from the sea and it smashed into her skull from behind, plenty of it burrowing well into her skin and head. Caroline saw stars and then her world went black.

* * *

Things had been going well for Klaus in the last several years. Elijah, Kol, and Rebekah had all remained by his side in New Orleans to repair his relationship with Marcel and the city. They were enjoying a rare period of calm and prosperity. The city was thriving, his friendship with Marcel was renewed and he had an army of vampires at his side that he was training to be as deadly as hybrids and almost _more_ loyal, even without a sire bond.

It was on absolutely no one's mind, least of all Klaus's, that over 8,000 miles away a devastating hurricane was ravaging the Philippines.

Until Bonnie Bennett called anyway.

Klaus had been in an all-but meditative state painting and winced in annoyance when he felt his phone vibrating. But his frown morphed from one of annoyance to genuine concern when he recognized the area code as from Mystic Falls Virginia.

"Caroline?" he answered immediately and desperately.

" _Not quite,"_ Bonnie returned.

"Miss Bennett?" Klaus identified, now looking confused. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" His tone forced fake cordiality when his insides were really clenching in nervous anxiety. This is about _her,_ he can _feel_ it.

" _It's Caroline,"_ she started, taking a sobering breath. " _She's missing. I can't find her using a locator spell."_

"When was the last time you talked to her? Where _the hell_ is she supposed to be? And how soon can you get down to New Orleans?" he demanded.

Perhaps the angry rapid-fire questions should have annoyed her but Bonnie was instead flooded by relief. Klaus had his I-always-know-what-I'm-doing voice on and for the first time that day Bonnie felt like she made a good call.

* * *

When Caroline woke up many hours later, she groaned from the pain in her head. Much like waking after a snapped neck, it took a few minutes - or an hour or so - to be completely back to normal. Unlike a snapped neck, it also took a lot of digging around her own skin and skull to get out all of the painful splinters from the driftwood embedded in her head.

It was still raining and the wind was still gusting but it was much less intense than before. Caroline believed the worst of the storm had passed. Still pinned beneath her was the only thing she had left other than the clothes on her back, and that was the dead body of her pilot.

His blood may very well have been the only blood on the island. What Caroline would've liked to do was ration it but she didn't have any containers to drain the man into. Her options were to bleed his dead body dry immediately or to leave it in search of something usable.

Caroline took a gamble and chose both. After a long, satisfying sip from the man's body, she quickly buried him in the sand to protect him as best as she can from the elements, marking the spot over of him with an elaborate pattern made from driftwood she finds nearby. And then she took off at vamp speed around the island to get her bearings.

* * *

 _ **Okay, don't slaughter me for starting**_ **another** _ **Klaroline project when I already have so many going at once. I can make this work, I promise! Plus, I'm planning for this fic to be pretty short, less than 10 parts, so it won't take up too much time to finish. None of my fics are on hiatus right now, despite late updates, some projects are just taking up more space in my mind. In particular, this has been nagging at me to write for awhile.**_ _ **This fic is rated M for later smut!**_

 _ **I was a little worried about this having too many similarities to "Prowl" by withfireandblood which we all know and adore but, at the end of the day, this fic isn't even loosely inspired by that fic. In fact, it was solely conceptualized after a good old-fashioned rerun of**_ **Castaway** _ **so I decided to run with it.**_

 _ **Drop me a note, let me know what you think!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_

* * *

These were the facts Caroline knew: 1) The island was pretty small; she was no cartographer but thought it was about 15 miles or so in circumference, minus its few inlets and peninsulas. 2) It had some massively large hills and cliffs built into its small area. 3) At the very least she would be able to try her hand at hunting birds because at least she'd seen and heard plenty of them on the isolated island. 4) There was much more of this place for her to explore and perhaps the island could prove more rich in resources than she initially thought.

5) There weren't people. But there were ruins.

After scouting the perimeter of the island for several hours, Caroline turned inward in the hopes of finding animals to feed on. To do that, she had to think like a human or any other animal would and try to find a source of water.

Besides the birds and plenty of bugs and crabs — she'd never hunted those things before for blood but, because there weren't any other animals, she was going to need to learn fast. She'd found a single freshwater pond, small but deep, and likely only sustained by the high amount of rain typical for the area. For all she knew it wasn't even typically that deep and the hurricane had merely filled it. That would explain the lack of animals, right? What would be keeping all the lush foliage alive then?

But, of course according to her string of luck, there were still no people or signs of technology, not even a radio tower. Caroline had kind of figured that would be the case after scouting the perimeter and finding no sign of docks or human presence in the slightest.

So, Caroline trudged herself back in the direction of where she'd left the pilot and the plane wing, feeling disappointed and slightly more out of luck than before. Still, Caroline was determined to remain optimistic. Bonnie would know she was missing, right? And someone had to know the pilot was gone.

And then, she'd stumbled upon the first ruins.

Not looking where she was going in the brush, Caroline tripped over something. Immediately she had assumed it was the root of a tree but, upon inspecting the offending object, she saw it was a brick carved out of stone. Glancing through the tall underbrush around her, Caroline saw dozens upon dozens of more such bricks, many stacked upon one another. As she wandered forward between them, she could begin to piece together the image of walls and doorways, like connecting the dots between dozens of scattered remnants of stone.

So there _had_ been people here once upon a time. Caroline followed the ruins into deeper forest in the center of the island. Pushing through the brush, she felt her skin begin to prickle strangely. Caroline blamed it on the humidity and still feeling weak from weathering the storm. But after parting a cluster of branches, Caroline found herself in front of a clearing. In its center, was an intricately carved stone entrance into a mine built into one of the sloping sides of one of the high hills of the island.

The clearing itself had an ethereal quality to it. Shimmering and gauzy almost like a Rococo painting, the light floating in between the trees of the jungle to hit upon the carved stone entryway in such a fashion that it almost seemed to glow… beckoning her in. Caroline was lost in a thrum of vibration around her, so steady that it sent her into a near-state of hypnosis. She couldn't help how her footsteps slowed but steadily moved towards the entrance of the long-abandoned mine. Caroline didn't even feel scared… she didn't feel anything…

Abruptly, she snapped herself out of it.

 _Fuck,_ the position of the sun overhead had changed. It looked like it was almost high noon. How long had she just been standing there staring into the black pit of the mine? It looked like a couple of hours.

There was magic here, and it appeared to be ancient.

 _Note to self, stay away from the ruins._

* * *

Bonnie arrived in New Orleans less than seven hours after she'd first called Klaus. She'd arrived at the airport expecting to buy the first ticket out, only to find Klaus had already booked her a first class seat. A scheduled stop in Jacksonville, Florida before completing the flight to New Orleans had also _miraculously_ been canceled, leaving a good two thirds of the plane empty.

After that, Bonnie dropped her expectations of having to hail a cab into the city when she arrived, expecting that Klaus would likely send someone to pick her up.

What she did _not_ expect was to find Klaus himself waiting for her right at the gate when she got off the plane, looking about as ill-tempered as she'd ever seen him and that was saying something.

"I have three different covens working on locator spells as we speak but every update I get they still haven't been able to track her," Klaus growled immediately, neglecting _any_ sort of greeting and promptly whisking her carry-on bag away from her to toss over his own shoulder.

People could say what they would about Klaus and the Mikaelsons, Bonnie considered, but living for 1,000 years apparently bred some inherent chivalry into you.

"You said she was on Spring Break?" he asked and Bonnie could hear a different sort of tightness to his voice when he asked that and she could only imagine what was running through his head. Klaus had always been the jealous type, hadn't he? That had always been part of the reason he was so particularly awful to Tyler, Bonnie had thought.

"Yeah, she invited me to go with her," Bonnie replied, still feeling guilty, "But she ended up going alone when I turned her down."

He didn't look particularly assuaged by this — Klaus was well aware what young college women did on Spring Break, alone or not — but he did say to Bonnie, "Well it's a good thing you didn't or you'd _both_ be lost and then no one would even know to look for you."

 _Well, that was about as close to comforting anyone as Klaus Mikaelson would get,_ Bonnie thought as they rushed down the halls of the airport.

"You would have realized Caroline was missing eventually," Bonnie pointed out, not teasing him, just stating a fact. "But if I had gone with her, I never would have let her get on a plane in the middle of a hurricane!"

"How can you be sure that's what's happened?" Klaus demanded. "I don't believe Caroline would be so foolish as to make such a decision. And there are no reports of missing aircrafts leaving _any_ of the airports in the Philippines."

Trust Klaus to have already managed to look into that. _Man,_ Bonnie couldn't help but think, _she had_ really _made the right call here._

Bonnie rolled her eyes, "Our semester is just starting at Whitmore and Caroline would _not_ miss even one day of classes. As a matter of fact, in her mind it's probably the worst day to miss because she'll miss going over the syllabus. Trust me, I know Caroline."

"Still, _flying_ into a hurricane?" Klaus insisted, still unbelieving. There _had_ to be another explanation. Surely this was some plot against _him._

They were approaching the entrance of the airport now as they rushed through the crowds, Bonnie needing to practically jog to keep up with Klaus's long strides. Klaus was effortlessly brushing past people but Bonnie kept having to periodically holler a ' _sorry!'_ over her shoulder each time she bumped into someone in the crowded space. He wasn't slowing down though.

"Quickly! Keep up Miss Bennett, we have another flight to catch!" Klaus called back to her sharply.

"Another flight?" she asked. "Then why are we leaving the airport? Klaus, _wait up!_ "

* * *

She knew something was amiss the moment she could see the plane's wing farther up on the beach over the horizon. Underneath her shoddy little shelter, she could see the birds of the island flocking around something in a frenzy. _The body._

"No… no no no nonono!" Caroline began shouting becoming frantic and speeding across the sand.

The gulls scattered as she ran up. The dead pilot was no longer buried under the sand. No, it had been excavated by a horde of hundreds upon hundreds of tiny crabs, all swarming over top of the body and picking at its decaying flesh.

If she'd still been a human, Caroline was very certain the sight would have made her ill. As it was, she still felt a strange compulsion to gag and she had to turn away from the sight.

"Great!" she screamed into the sky. "That's just great!"

The distinct sound of a laugh — someone laughing _at_ her — made Caroline spin around so fast she almost lost her balance.

Her eyes darted around, trying to identify the source of the sound but she couldn't see anything. _God she was hearing things now, perfect._ But she _knew_ that laugh… it was one reserved specifically for her. It had sounded like…

"Hello?" Caroline called out hesitantly into the trees behind her.

No response, just a gentle breeze free the ocean.

Feeling like a complete lunatic, she tried one more thing, "...Klaus?"

And, of course, nothing.

"You haven't even been here 24 hours yet and you're already have to pep talk yourself to pull it together?" Caroline asked herself rhetorically. "You're certifiable, Forbes, you know that."

* * *

They had left the airport because Klaus didn't fly commercial. He had a private jet of course. Bonnie had tried attempted a feeble joke — _oh so you'll upgrade me to first class but I only get the VIP treatment when I travel with you; I see how it is_ — in an attempt to at least _somewhat_ lighten the mood and start building up a sense of trust with him, at least for the purposes of finding her best friend.

It didn't work. Klaus just grumpily informed her, "I would have sent it to get you but I needed to have it prepared for our flight to the Philippines."

The idea of flying where there's just been one of the most major hurricanes in the last century isn't the most appealing idea in the world but, Klaus assured her that the storm has moved much further south of where they're headed. Walking up the stairs to his luxury jet, Klaus placed her bad on one of the plush leather seats. Bonnie followed him inside to find Kol and half a dozen other people sitting around and talking.

"Ah, Bonnie!" Kol greeted her warmly. "It's lovely to see you, darling, although I wish it was under better circumstances."

"Wow, Kol, you actually sound… _genuine,_ for once!" Bonnie couldn't help but volley back. It wasn't the most polite response in the world but, she legitimately didn't trust that Kol was being truly sympathetic with her right now. She wasn't even sure he was capable of it.

"Don't be like that, I'm being sincere!" he said, putting a hand over his heart with a wounded expression on his face. "We're all sick with worry over pretty little Caroline. As you can imagine, Nik's been absolutely insufferable since you delivered the news and I have a feeling that mood is only going to continue until we find her."

 _Ah, of course._

"Of all the siblings he could have recruited to help him on this trip… Klaus just had to choose you," Bonnie muttered, picking up her bag off the seat to plop down in it herself.

"That's only because I trust Elijah and Rebekah more to keep me updated about any progress they make here. We still have covens working around the clock to attempt to modify their locator spells or find some other way to find her," Klaus informed her. "Now don't get too comfortable. We need to speak privately. Come sit in the cockpit for a moment while we take off."

He told her who the people with Kol are — a mix of trusted witches loyal to the family and several vampires from his personal ' _army',_ something Bonnie had been unaware he had down here in New Orleans. Not that she was surprised.

Klaus went over his plan. While his witches were hard away at work, they were going to Caroline's hotel to conduct a little investigation and track her movements before she disappeared. A good old-fashioned game of detective, only neither one of them was even sort of thinking about it as a game.

"And we can start right now," Klaus finished after he explains that once they land they'll first head to the resort she was at. "Cell phone please."

He held out his hand expectantly and Bonnie quirked a disbelieving brow at him to say, _really?_ Not only was she uncomfortable with the idea of Klaus Mikaelson browsing through her phone at his leisure, she's pretty sure that Caroline wouldn't want him reading her private text messages to Bonnie either.

"Something incriminating on there?" Klaus asked with an exasperated sigh, growing impatient as he waited. "Look, I need to know who she was talking to on her trip, where she was going, _anything_ that might help."

Bonnie took out her phone and unlocked it. As the pilot next to them began to take the plane down the runway of the small airport, she also set the phone to airplane mode.

"Fine," she conceded. "But I'm not just _giving_ you my phone. I'll look through it with you. I downloaded and saved a bunch of the photos she posted on Instagram..."

"Instagram?" Klaus asked, not understanding.

Behind them, Kol barreled into the cockpit uninvited.

"I'm sorry, I could hear you talking and I wasn't about to miss someone try to explain Instagram to Niklaus," he told them.

"Just shut the door," Klaus snapped, "And be quiet."

He doesn't really care if Kol was in there. Particularly since Kol _wa_ _s_ more well versed with things people like Caroline use called instant-something.

"It's just an app for your phone that you post pictures to so your friends and family can keep up with what you're doing," Bonnie explained concisely. "It's like Facebook but just for your photos."

"He doesn't have Facebook either," Kol snickered.

"Well I blood well understand how it works," Klaus replied, distinctly annoyed with everyone treating him as if he didn't understand technology.

"Anyway, normally you have to be online to see anything but I've saved some of the pictures Care posted plus some she sent just to me. Here, this is one from when she got in," Bonnie said, swiping her finger rapidly back through her photos to the first picture Caroline had posted. It was the elegant lobby of her resort which opened straight out onto a very blue and picturesque ocean that betrayed no sign of the impending storm.

That wasn't particularly helpful as she'd already told Klaus where Caroline had been staying. So Bonnie, quickly swiped through as Klaus took in every detail of what she was showing to him.

"Her username is just her name too," Kol lamented when one of her Instagram photos came up, with Caroline's handle across the top of the photo. "What a waste! She had so many options between that song Sweet Caroline and all those nicknames your lot has always had for her…"

"Caroline has a strict policy about keeping her social media accounts classy," Bonnie said. "You won't see drunk selfies, anything stupid, or anything slutty on her accounts."

"Yes, something I've noticed ever since I started following her," Kol said in a disappointed tone.

" _Following_ her?" Klaus all but spat out, realizing that he was probably just missing something but not being able to suppress the sudden swell of anger that rose within him in response to the idea of Kol stalking Caroline.

"It just means that he's subscribed to her Instagram account, don't worry he follows all of us and periodically leaves obnoxious comments. The other day when I posted a selfie he commented ' _It's not 2004. Stop taking MySpace photos.'_ plus a devil emoji," Bonnie said while Kol laughed as he remembered. "Which is an insult I don't expect you to understand, Klaus, but it's an insult all the same."

"I was just teasing!" Kol defended, "Lighten up!"

"Weren't you daggered when MySpace was still popular anyway? How do you even _know_ how to correctly use that insult?" Bonnie pressed.

"Enough!" Klaus yelled, his tone harsh enough to make their pilot wince a little next to her but stay quiet. "Bonnie if you don't keep showing me everything, I _will_ take your phone. And Kol, if you don't _shut up_ , I will rip out your tongue."

Bonnie rolled her eyes — noticing how Klaus had seemed to pocket the fact that he could apparently _follow_ Caroline and see any photos she took but it was technically socially acceptable wouldn't be considered creepy — but continued to swipe through the photos. The bulk of what Caroline had posted online were scenic shots of the island and the water and Caroline had sent her plenty as well, liking to keep Bonnie constantly updated, but Bonnie hadn't bothered saving any of those herself. All she had downloaded to keep where her favorite selfies of Caroline.

The next photo was of Caroline at a bar. She'd actually had someone take this photo of her, because you could see her whole body in the photo. She was sitting alone but leaning against the bar looking as happy as could be with a plate of human food in front of her and some kind of massive looking iced cocktail. Looks could be deceiving, though, Bonnie well knew. She could tell in almost all of Caroline's photos how lonely and in pain her friend still was. Hell, she _knew_ Caroline still felt those things because they _both_ did. That had been part of the reason Bonnie hadn't joined her on the trip; she just didn't feel up to playing pretend.

Part of her wondered if Klaus could see the sadness in Caroline's eyes in these pictures.

"Who took that photo?" Klaus demanded immediately.

"I dunno," Bonnie lied smoothly. "She didn't mention it so it was probably just another customer at the restaurant." _This_ was exactly why she hadn't just given Klaus her phone. Neither she nor Caroline needed him jumping to all sorts of conclusions.

They flipped through a few more, mostly selfies of Caroline at the beach or relaxing next to the pool with increasingly more elaborate looking cocktails in each photo. Next to her, Bonnie could see Klaus's eyes being to soften as he looked through the photos and she was surprised to feel her heart actually going out to him a little bit. _Jesus, she never would have expected that to happen for Klaus Mikaelson of all people._ But, frankly, she and Caroline had been relying on each other and feeling abandoned for so long that Bonnie couldn't help but look on Klaus a little more kindly since he was the first person she'd seen in so long looking at her the way she deserved.

When they got to a video, Bonnie hesitated on pressing play but Klaus would want to know about anybody she'd been with. He'd want to question them. Suddenly she felt bad about lying about the guy Caroline had flirted with at the bar and taken her picture for her. Bonnie pressed play.

A short 40 second or so video started of a bunch of people dancing outside in front of a band. Someone in the audience surrounding the dance floor was holding Caroline's phone and cheering her on, a female voice. The band was playing salsa music and then Caroline came into focus on the screen, twirling around happily with a man. They were back in forth between some basic salsa moves and then just dancing for fun. Caroline would laugh and through her head back each time her dance partner would spin her around.

Klaus was smiling as he watched her enjoy herself before the video cut to an end. She looked like she was having a good time but she also looked like she was forcing it just a little bit. That worried Klaus. And then there was that man dancing with her…

"Who was that?" Klaus asked.

"Just a friend she met while she was there," Bonnie sighed. "I think his sister was filming it. They didn't hook up, Klaus."

Klaus seemed content to believe her. Nevertheless his mood was even further soured at the thought of anyone else dancing with Caroline.

When she swiped again, Bonnie tried to brush quickly past the next photo but Klaus grabbed her hand to stop her. It was a selfie Caroline had taken. She was making a scandalized face and gesturing to something behind her in the frame. Some hot dudes, shirtless, with amazing abs.

"I thought you said she kept her social media accounts ' _classy?'"_ Klaus demanded.

Bonnie wrenched her hand back and changed the photo. "She does, that photo she only sent to me."

Klaus was _definitely_ annoyed now but, luckily, the remaining photos were all much more benign. He assessed them silently, not acknowledging one way or the other if he thought he was learning anything. Bonnie got the feeling he was mostly just trying to make a list of all the places they had to go and the people they'd need to find and question.

"This is the last one," Bonnie said finally, "She took it two days before she was scheduled to leave."

Klaus studied the photo contemplatively. Another selfie in which Caroline had a big smile plastered to her face, she was standing in front of the ocean at sunset as the light cast and beautiful and surreal glow across the water.

"She looks unhappy," Klaus finally said softly.

So he _did_ notice.

"I think she probably was," Bonnie admitted. "Anyway, I suppose you'll want to read her texts now? You can't see all of them. Some of what we talk about is strictly private."

* * *

After her strange auditory hallucination, Caroline found she couldn't _stop_ thinking about Klaus.

 _You know who would get himself out of this situation? Klaus._

 _You know who would definitely get_ me _out of this situation if he was with me? Klaus._

 _You know who wouldn't even_ be _here right now if she'd just gotten over herself and gone to see Klaus ages ago? You, you idiot._ You _wouldn't be here._

Caroline knew she was just pouting now, not doing much of anything other than trying to stay out of the sun and think. She'd relocated the wing of the plane to a more stable grouping of trees a bit closer to the shoreline, mostly because she wanted to get away from the pilot's body without dealing with it.

It wasn't even the crabs' fault she'd lost her blood source, Caroline eventually realized after she'd gotten over her shock enough to see if she could salvage anything from the crustaceans. She'd forgotten what happened to dead bodies — all the blood had pooled into the spot she'd left him lying on. His back was bruised a mottled purple as a result and, from where the crabs had picked some of his skin clean off, she could see that the blood had turned into a coagulated, inedible mess. She should have drained him dry the second she'd made it to shore.

 _You know who would have reminded you to do that? Klaus._

 _You know who would totally let you have some his blood right now? Klaus._

 _...You know who would have desperately fucked you senseless like at least ten times by now?_

"Okay, wow, not the time, Caroline," she scolded herself. "This is so weird! You should _not_ be spending so much time thinking about _Klaus!"_

In her mind she could envision Klaus finding this all pretty funny given the fact that the tables had finally turned, apparently.

" _Well, if you're destined to desiccate alone here for eternity,"_ her Imaginary Klaus argued in her head, " _What does it really matter, love?"_

"Good point," she replied out loud.

"Talking to yourself already, love?"

Caroline broke out into goosebumps. _That_ had not been in her head. _That_ had been out loud, right behind her, clear as a bell… the accented voice coated in sugar that haunted her dreams. It was Klaus. Logically, Caroline knew full well that she was alone on the island but the potency of the sound of Klaus's voice was so strong and rang through the air so clearly, that she again couldn't help but snap her neck around wildly in search of some sign of him or anyone.

But this time when she looked back into the trees, she saw she wasn't alone at all. Standing there, grinning at her, was Klaus.

Caroline blinked rapidly, even rubbing her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

"Klaus?!" she gasped.

"In the flesh," he replied, grinning at her cheekily.

* * *

 **Thanks so much to everyone who favorited, followed, and reviewed. Hope you enjoyed the update. Let me know what you think!**

 **CKHybrid, good call on that continuity error in part 1 which I edited. I had specific plans for how I wanted to grossly deal with pilot's body, sort of a la** _ **Jaws,**_ **but thanks for keeping an eye out! :D This chapter actually probably had too many** _ **Jaws**_ **references for it's own good… By too many, I mean three.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3**_

* * *

Klaus read her texts, of course, memorizing names of museums, dance clubs, and restaurants alike that she'd visited. Bonnie had kept a _much_ closer watch over the texts, though, not allowing Klaus to peek while she scrolled through certain lines and never allowing him to read more than what she presented on her screen at any given time. In fact, she kept _such_ a close guard that it made him wonder what was up. _Obviously,_ it would seem, _Caroline had hooked up with someone while on break._

It was unfortunate, given the fact that Klaus would likely assume that she was protecting Caroline's privacy for modest reasons. The truth was that, even while Care had been gone, the blonde had made a valiant effort at pretending to be happy but any fool could tell she was as miserable on vacation as in Virginia. Klaus had already been able to discern that very well from just the photos he'd seen. Bonnie felt like it would be a _complete_ invasion of her privacy to let Klaus read things where Care laid out the barest parts of herself. Only Caroline could give someone permission to see that.

In fact, Caroline _had_ hooked up with a few nameless hotties that she told Bonnie about. But that was definitively none of Klaus's business. Not to mention, Caroline didn't talk about those kinds of things in text messages, she was too discrete. Bonnie had learned about the hookups over phone calls and Skype. Which meant there was no reason for Klaus to ever find out anyway, right?

 _Unless we need to talk to one of those guys…_ she couldn't help but think.

"Anything I can do to take your mind off of it?" a soft voice questioned next to her.

Bonnie was abruptly shaken from her thoughts to look to find Kol at her side, looking at her completely earnestly. They'd long since finished pouring over her phone and, though it had taken _hours,_ it seemed she answered all of Klaus's questions to his satisfaction. Still, private plane or no, it was a _long_ flight from New Orleans to the Philippines and it didn't seem to matter how much time they'd spent going over things. She and Klaus still both had to endure hours stewing in their own thoughts before they landed.

Klaus, for his part, had chosen to spend that time locked up with the pilot whom, apparently, he could trust not to bother him. No one had heard a peep from them. Bonnie had chosen to join the others in the luxurious passenger section of the plane. Though she didn't feel much like talking to any of them, they had a fully stocked bar and Bonnie was quick to pour herself a nice double scotch.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Bonnie asked, genuinely not having heard him, so lost had she been in her thoughts.

"I asked if there was anything I could do to help take your mind off of it," Kol repeated, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. "You've been sitting there for an hour now, staring out the same window… and you didn't even drink your scotch." He said that last part, about not drinking her scotch, like it was near unbelievable a concept.

She glanced down to her hand, surprised. Sure enough, still clutched title in her grip and as full as when she'd first poured it, was her scotch.

"Oh, jeez…" she murmured, almost self-consciously. "Lost in my thoughts, I guess."

"Hey, it's alright. She's your best friend," Kol said, sliding over to the plane seat next to her.

"She's all I have left," Bonnie intoned without emotion.

Kol took the drink from Bonnie's hand and set it down in cup holder before gently turning her face towards his own.

"Look Bonnie Bennett, I'm starting to understand exactly how much you've been through," Kol said, "But you _cannot_ shut down right now. Caroline needs you to stay focused. Can you do that?"

Bonnie locked eyes with Kol before sighing and nodding determinedly. "I have to do, don't I?" she asked. "By the way, when you you get so wise? And so _nice?"_

"I've always been nice!" he defended in mostly mock defense but what also sounded like a little bit of genuine hurt, "And as for the wisdom? You pick up a few things in a millenia."

"Still," Bonnie grinned, for real in the first time in what felt like forever, "If you'd ever asked me if there was anything you could do to ' _distract me'_ in the past, it would have been said with a completely different tone."

Kol lowered his voice and leaned in just a touch closer to her, looking down at her with a wicked smirk, "I can still say it that way, if that's what you'd prefer?"

"Aaaand he's back!"

Just then the cockpit door opened and Klaus stepped out. Everyone buckle up, we're beginning to descend. We should be landing in 35 minutes or less."

* * *

Caroline so literally could not believe what she was seeing that she was _still_ gaping at him like a cartoon character. She was pretty sure she'd pinched herself about three times now.

"Well, okay, let me qualify," Klaus said, sensing her distress when she continued to look at him like a codfish, "I said ' _In the flesh'_ and that was misleading because I'm not exactly here… in the _flesh."_

"Uh, well then in what capacity exactly _are_ you here?" Caroline asked, once she'd finally regained her voice.

"You're hallucinating me," he replied simply. shrugging like it was the most casual thing in the world.

Caroline blinked back in quiet shocked response, staring blankly. He was still just casually leaning against a tree, smirking, and looking at her with nothing more than bemused eyes. He was wearing khaki slacks rolled up appealingly to show off his calves and keep them out of the sand and, overtop of that a thin white linen shirt that was practically see through to begin with but he'd left it unbuttoned to expose his toned chest. She couldn't help but drink in the site of him and Klaus — imaginary or not — started smiling broad enough to show those irresistible dimples of his when he noticed.

"I'm sorry but," she said, "That can't be possible."

Klaus chuckled. "I'm afraid it is. Why do you think so, love?"

"I haven't even been here for 24 hours yet, there's no way I'm desiccating yet!"

He shrugged, "There are plenty of other reasons you could be hallucinating, Caroline," he replied and began listing them off, "Shock, fear, PTSD from the crash setting in… those ruins you found."

"What do you know about those ruins?" Caroline demanded immediately.

Klaus just laughed at her again, "I'm afraid nothing more than you do, love. I'm just a projection of your own mind after all."

Caroline felt an actual growl of frustration emit from her throat and as she shouted, "I'm _not_ crazy" she hurled herself at Klaus, preparing to start pummeling him just to prove he was real and actually standing before her…

...And fell face forward into the sand. And it was a rocky patch with seashells too so now she was going to have a face full of scratches and a headache for a bit until she healed, which was going to take longer since she hadn't fed today. .

Behind her Klaus laughed.

"You ass," she complained. "If you know everything I know then you could have warned me!"

"Caroline, I _did_ ," Klaus sighed with exasperation. "Now, come on, let's take a look at your shelter."

* * *

When they got to the resort, the very first thing Klaus did was compel himself Caroline's suite which, unfortunately had knocked a honeymooning couple out. Bonnie insisted they wouldn't find anything, that they room would be well cleaned out but, the moment they stepped through the threshold, Klaus had stood there mesmerized.

"Klaus?" Bonnie asked, tentatively. He was seriously freaking her out with his vacant stare. "What's going on? Is something the matter."

"She was here…" he breathed out.

"Yeah, I know. You _compelled_ the concierge for her room, remember?" Bonnie asked in an Earth-to-Klaus tone.

"No I mean-" he cut himself off quite abruptly.

"Klaus? What is it? You can tell me," Bonnie prompted.

Klaus sighed, sounding about as sad as she'd ever heard anyone, completely taken aback that the Original Big Bad himself could make such a sound of pure painful emotion. Finally he turned to Bonnie and she could have sworn his eyes were just barely glistening.

"You said they would have cleaned it out," Klaus said, almost _blaming_ in his tone. "But it smells like _her._ She's _everywhere_ in here…"

Normally, that kind of comment would have seriously creepy Bonnie out. It sounded like some serial killer talk. But she realized that Klaus just had extraordinary senses and it was hurting him to know Care had _just_ been here. She could relate; she was feeling the same thing even if the room seemed spotless of all traces of Caroline to her.

"Come on," Bonnie said gently, feeling very strange indeed to be offering any kind of comfort to Klaus, "We've all got our rooms, let's round up everyone else and start splitting up."

Klaus nodded and turned away from the room to brisk past Bonnie with a look of determination on his face.

* * *

Mind-version of Klaus was every bit as bossy as the regular one.

 _Get those leaves, you can use them to make rope and thatch a roof._

 _Why haven't you taken any of the metal off the plane's wing yet? You need to make a hatchet to cut down logs. Some sort of machete to cut through brush would be useful too. And, of course you're going to need a spear, a knife, arrows… There are only so many types of animals on this island._

 _You can't just sleep on the ground like that, it's dangerous! You have to build yourself and raised platform in your shelter._

 _Have you even_ thought _about a distress signal yet?_

 _Did you really think you could make a shelter just by wedging the plane's wing between two trees? Please, you obviously need to build something of some stability!_

And because he wasn't _real_ , that meant this Klaus wasn't _tangible._ As she'd all too painfully discovered earlier. So, he couldn't help with any of the hard labor; it was all up to Caroline, who was already exhausted, to do everything. All mind-Klaus could do, apparently, was bark orders. It was irritating as all hell. Couldn't he be the least bit sympathetic?

Then again, it _was_ turning out to be rather helpful.

"If you're just a projection of my mind and only know what I know… then how come you know so much more about survival than I do?" Caroline asked him, taking a break in weaving some long strips of thick leaves together to make a rope to wrap round the handle of the hatchet she was crafting.

"I don't. _You_ know more than you think you do, probably from watching terrible reality survival shows all the time in secret. You just need to imagine me authoritatively telling you how to fix things to trigger the memories for some reason. I'd wager it has something to do with you _missing_ me and being so sure I'd get us out of here to live happily ever after," he said with a sly smile and a wink.

Caroline just scoffed. "Please," she hissed out in annoyance.

"Seriously though, do you think the real Niklaus Mikaelson would be making a shelter right now? No, he'd be using the wing of this plane to make a boat and get the hell out of here," Klaus said.

"So why don't we do that?" she asked.

"Because that little trick _really is_ out of your purview, I'm afraid. You know the real me coul pull it off but you don't have that knowledge to project into the me you're hallucinating."

"Speaking of the real you, I've been thinking…"

He looked interested.

"It's getting really hard for me not to keep thinking that you're _actually_ him, the real Klaus I mean, and… I just, I just _need_ to remember that you're not," she said, pain in her tone, "I need to remember you're all in my head, okay?"

"Okay?" he responded, looking deeply hurt to her.

"So I've decided I'm not going to call you Klaus because that's what I call _him_ ," Caroline declared. "From this point forward, you're going to just be Nik."

"Ah, the _privileged_ name," Nik responded with a dimpled grin. "Do I detect that some part of you has been wanting to be able to call me that for awhile now?"

Caroline blushed, "You're not real. I don't care what you think. There's no reason that _real_ Klaus ever needs to find out about this."

He shook his head in amusement, "Whatever you say love," he replied. "No finish off weaving those leaves around the end of the metal. You need it to be thick where you hold it or the metal will cut into your palms each time you use it."

Caroline dutifully returned to wrapping yet another layer of braided and woven strips of palm leaves around the thin jagged piece of metal she'd torn from from the wing of the plane. Next she was going to build a fire, find a stone, and heat it so she could use it to pound out the thin aluminum from the plane into something sharper and more usable. Nik told her that all of this knowledge came from _somewhere_ in her own mind which made Caroline puff up with a bit of pride.

It still didn't explain why she was seeing visions of Niklaus Mikaelson though and Caroline had to wonder why she wasn't freaking out more. Normally at the first sign of mental instability, she would have forcefully pushed back from thinking about him. But so far she'd been so lonely and more scared than she'd been willing to admit. She was stuck here.

Caroling knew she could use a friend. Even if he was imaginary.

* * *

The first thing Klaus did was send out groups of vampires to each spot Caroline had visited on the island. Their instructions were clear: compel your way into security and speed through any and all video footage of her. The task was to get pictures, names, and addresses for every single person she'd encountered on the trip.

That was when Bonnie was first hit with an unsettled feeling in her stomach. She'd given him plenty of information on the brief _friends_ Caroline had made on vacation but, she'd very _specifically_ withheld any information about hookups. She supposed she could always pretend that she hadn't known when Klaus inevitably discovered the two men Caroline had shared nights with.

But Bonnie had a feeling claiming ignorance wouldn't work. Klaus knew now that the two girls only had each other left. He would know that they told each other everything… that they likely always had anyway, as lifelong best friends. She felt guilty about withholding potential information that could help find her friend just for the sake of said friend's _privacy_ — her _life_ was more important after all — but, she was also genuinely scared.

Klaus was going to be _pissed_ when he found out and, though Bonnie felt more than confident in her ability to hold her own, that didn't make an enraged Klaus Mikaelson any more fun to face.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Pretty short chapter, I know but, as I mentioned before, this is going to be a fairly short fic. So updates don't really warrant the 4,500 to 8,000 behemoths I pop out for other stories. Now I don't know what to update next!**_

 _ **Still on board? Love it, hate it? Review, follow, and favorite! 3 Thanks so much to everyone who already has.**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4**_

* * *

The extent to which Nik's survival knowledge — er, well, _her_ survival knowledge — actually helped, was limited. That fact became more readily apparent as each hour passed. Nik barked out a lot of good _ideas,_ things anyone really might have seen flipping on a nature network one night… but those ideas didn't translate well into the cold hard logistics Caroline really needed.

So what if she'd managed to rip off some of the outer layer of the plane wing's metal frame? Sure it had seemed like a huge accomplishment at the time but it wasn't as if Caroline had any sort of history with metal work. Pounding it into the shape of any sort of usable tool was proving a basically impossible task.

Then Nik — or herself or… _god, did it even matter?_ — had the brilliant idea to make the metal more pliable by heating it first. Obviously, Caroline's next task was to build a fire. But, in a similar struggle of defeat, she'd quickly discovered that no amount of knowing to delicately build the fire first with small pieces of grass before gradually increasing its fuel to large pieces of wood, was making the process any easier. Hell, there was nothing for her to carefully blow onto the little wisps of dry grass she'd collected because she couldn't get anything to spark. Rubbing wood on wood or hitting rocks against rocks, nothing was doing anything and Caroline could feel herself starting to reach a breaking point.

"I'm not sure just any type of rock works, love," Nik said soothingly from behind her as she began to work herself into a frenzy trying to get two rocks to spark against each other. "I think it has to be flint."

"Well, we don't really know, do we?" she snapped back, throwing the rocks into the air and flopping backwards into the sand in frustration. "The fact of the matter is that I don't really have a clue how any of this works so neither do you! So why don't you stop saying everything in that damn annoying tone of certainty!"

Upon the end of her tirade she hoisted herself up to storm angrily down the beach without a second glance back at the imaginary Nik. If he was from her own head then surely she'd be able to get rid of him just by not thinking about him, right?

"Arrogant _asshole,_ " Caroline murmured angrily to herself as she kept walking, trying to distract herself from what was _really_ getting to her. It was officially getting dark out and tonight she wasn't going to have the 'luxury' of being passed out through the stretch of it. No, this time, she'd likely be tossing and turning both in fear and sadness the entire night through. The only thing that could possibly make the situation any worse was the fact that she'd be stuck completely in the dark and cold now too without a fire.

"Come on now, love, don't be like that. I'm only trying to help," Nik's voice popped up from behind her.

Caroline didn't resist the urge to sigh and roll her eyes. _Of course_ he'd just pop back up whenever he damn well pleased. She'd never had good control over her own thoughts; her mind had always been a runaway train of whirling thoughts and now was apparently no different.

"Well you're _not_ helping," Caroline hissed again, willing him to leave her alone. Funny how her emotions could turn on a dime like that. Before his hallucination had shown up, all she'd been able to think about was how desperately she wanted Klaus there.

 _The_ real _Klaus; not this watered down version parceled together from your distant memories of him from three years ago,_ she couldn't help but think to herself.

"I'm sorry," she said then, turning around to face him where he was regarding her quietly and cautiously with his hands pushed into his pockets in an apologetic stance. "Well I mean, I guess I don't know why I'm essentially just apologizing to myself…" she shook her head, getting off track. "What I mean to say is that I'm mostly just angry with myself. And disappointed that you're-"

Caroline cut herself off to study the ground. Even if there wasn't really anyone around to hear her, it was still hard to verbalize out loud.

"Disappointed that I'm what?" Nik implored softly.

"I'm disappointed that you're not really him," Caroline admitted. "I really wanted him to be here. I really wanted some kind of magical luck to just break through for me and for Klaus to show up and find me. But he didn't. Instead I'm just hallucinating him."

Nik held her gaze steadily, looking for all the world truly heartbroken at her predicament.

"I know, sweetheart," he said. "And I'm sorry I don't know how to be of more to help you."

"That's my fault," she scoffed, irritated with herself. Her mother had been a freaking sheriff and Caroline knew more than enough ways to look out for herself, _back in civilization_. But learning to use a gun was only helpful when you actually _had_ a gun. Or something to shoot for that matter; she hadn't seen even another bird all day, since she'd first come across those ruins.

"Look," Nik tried again. "You may not have all the specific steps to accomplish everything you need right now but at least you know _what_ you need. That's a hell of a lot more than most people might have in your circumstances. And I realize that for a perfectionist such as yourself-" Caroline giggled at that declaration and his lips quirked upwards at the sound, "-Not having step by step instructions must be terribly frustrating. But I can tell you that you _do_ know enough to keep trying. Don't hang up the towel quite yet."

As she considered what he said, Caroline looked up to the sky under the pretense of stretching her sore neck muscles from being hunched over the work of making a fire for so long. Really, she was just touched by what he'd said. Psycho pep talk from herself or not, it really did sound exactly like something the real Klaus would say to her. And the thought of that paired with the idea that she might never see him again made her ache again.

But she pushed the feeling down to look back to the Niklaus Mikaelson right in front of her. So what if she was going insane and essentially talking to herself? This imaginary friend was a hell of a lot better than a makeshift version of Tom Hanks's Wilson, right? If she was going to go insane from isolation she might as well submit to it now. It would just be easier in the long run.

"Alright," Caroline conceded. "I'll keep trying." _Not that I have any other options._

Nik smiled, concern still clearly etched into his features, but walked alongside her in silence as she trudged her way back to where she'd been setting up a camp.

* * *

"Bonnie Bennett, you are in some deep shit," Kol tsked at her from the doorway of her hotel room.

Bonnie's eyes snapped open hurriedly at the sound of his voice. She'd just started to doze off, not being quite as equipped to handle endless hours of searching the way a vampire could, despite her desire to find Care as quickly as possible.

"Jesus, Kol! You just about gave me a heart attack!" Bonnie shouted, bolting up from her bed. Luckily she'd dozed off still fully clothed in her jeans and t-shirt; there was no putting it past Kol to sneak in on her while she was in tiny pjs or less. "How did you even get _in_ here? This is _my_ room!"

"Well lucky for you, I compelled myself a key!" he trilled, sauntering over from the doorway to take a seat in a chair in the sitting area across from her bed.

"Please, enlighten me. How on _earth_ could that be lucky for me?" Bonnie deadpanned and he snickered.

"Because I was the one left in charge of the team going through the hotel's security footage and I graciously decided to let you in on what I discovered before I sought out Niklaus," Kol replied evenly and the declaration made Bonnie groan.

"Oh _great_ ," she sighed. "Let's just get this over with. What'd you see?"

"For the most part nothing interesting…" he taunted, enjoying having one up on her, "You know, a bellboy with her luggage, Caroline returning to her room to change or fetch a towel, the usual sort of stuff."

"Kol!" There was only so long Bonnie was willing to tolerate these types of annoying games and it wasn't very long at all.

" _And_ your dear sweet friend having hallway make-out sessions with not one but _two_ different lucky fellows!" Kol said finally. "Something tells me that information isn't exactly coming as a shock to you?"

Bonnie groaned before throwing her legs over the side of her huge bed and forcing herself to get out despite the haze of sleep that still clogged her senses. The only light in the room was artificial, a lamp next to her bed and one in the seating area by Kol, both of which she'd forgotten to turn off when she returned to her room to pass out for the night. Looking at the clock — _oh seriously?_ — it was only 5 am. She'd gotten _maybe_ four hours of sleep while Klaus and the rest were still out searching for leads.

"No, it's not a shock, Kol," Bonnie admitted before kneeling down in front of her suitcase to look for some new clothes to change into. "Obviously she told me that she hooked up with two guys but…"

"But you thought _keeping_ it from Klaus would be the better option?" Kol asked.

"He doesn't need to know every personal aspect of her life!" Bonnie snapped back defensively.

"Well, normally I'd quite agree with you. I just think you're forgetting that _you're_ the one who approached _him_ for this little rescue mission. And, trust me, I've had to help Niklaus track down more than enough people to understand how it works. Talking to everyone helps," he explained, sounding more amused with her than annoyed. _Naturally,_ she thought, _Kol would take delight in girls keeping dirty secrets for each other, even at a time like this._

"Are you trying to guilt trip me about this or something?" she asked. "Cause I can tell you right now, that's only going to piss me off."

This time he was the one to throw up his hands defensively.

"Quite the contrary! I'm here to propose a plan, something to save you from Nik's inevitable anger about being kept in the dark," Kol said.

She scoffed before settling on a pair of khaki shorts and an aqua blue v-neck tee from her luggage and turning to the bathroom to change. She smartly snapped the bathroom door shut behind her and locked it, noting Kol's irritated expression right before she did so.

"So I come to offer my help and you just _slam_ the door in my face?" he asked, annoyance finally lacing his own tone, the humor gone.

"I'm just getting changed. Just keep talking to me through the door," Bonnie said, not bothering to raise her tone knowing that he'd be able to hear her well enough with his crazy senses. "And I knew what I was getting into when I decided not to tell Klaus about those guys! We'll just have to tell him that I didn't know."

"Nik's not that dumb, darling," Kol warned and she could hear him standing to walk closer to the door for her benefit so she could hear him better.

"Then what do you suggest?" Bonnie asked, feeling like the inevitable was the inevitable at this point. Klaus Mikaelson didn't scare her, particularly when he was a state of complete single minded focus like now. Not to mention, so what if he got mad at her? All she cared about right now was getting Caroline _back_ and she was pretty damn sure that Klaus felt the same.

"I suggest that you go let me talk to him first and try to… warm him up a bit about these recent discoveries before you meet back up with us today," Kol said.

Ah, there is was. She'd had a hunch that was all this was about. Kol was just trying to step in to make himself look like a good guy here, like he was on her side. God, she'd always known he had a _thing_ for her but really? Did he not get laid in New Orleans or something?

Finishing running a brush through her sleep tousled hair after dressing, Bonnie opened the door to the bathroom to find Kol had taken a seat on her bed. As usual, he didn't do anything to hide the fact that he was seriously checking her out and Bonnie shot him a pointed glare in return.

"Honestly, Kol. I don't care. Let your brother throw a little hissy fit about Caroline having a private life. She's perfectly entitled to one," she said, grabbing her phone and purse. "All I care about is that we keep trying to find her. Let's go."

Behind her Kol shrugged, thinking to himself ' _Fine, it's your death sentence,'_ before tagging along after her to update Nik.

* * *

She'd started the fire. Betraying her rocks for another go at using two sticks, Caroline amped up her vamp speed to create as much friction as possible. It still took a frustratingly long time, during which Nik actually had the good sense to stay quiet next to her, simply watching as if he was respecting her need to concentrate.

Then, _finally_ , when Caroline had seen the tiniest, finest wisps of smoke begin to appear beneath her work she let out a gasp of breathless laughter and dropped to her knees practically in prayer to fuel her tiny spark with a few careful puffs of air.

"You've got this, Caroline," Nik's voice hummed from behind her, low and reassuring.

She could feel his eyes on her — still unsettlingly real in his presence — as she built the flames up enough to begin adding larger leaves, then sticks, and the few pieces of dry driftwood she'd been able to scrounge up after the hurricane. All the while she'd been working in a makeshift fire pit surrounded by stones that she'd put together and, after about twenty minutes, she finally had herself a real honest to goodness fire.

Standing from her work, Caroline allowed herself a cheerleader's jump and split in the air, laughing as she did.

"Hell yeah, I've got this!" she crowed, repeating Nik's words from just a few minutes early.

As she continued bouncing around, she heard applause coming from behind her and then the sound of Nik laughing while he watched her celebrate. Before Caroline realized what was happening, she got caught up in a case of the giggles with him. Twirling around, she caught his eyes regarding her with the same pure warmth they always had. For a split second, she didn't feel quite so alone after all.

But in the next second she was quickly snapped back to reality when she lost her footing in the sand and toppled over. Once again, she would have gone crashing smack dab into Nik's firm chest… had he really been there.

Instead, when she landed flat on her face with an embarrassed _oof_ , Caroline rolled over to see that was just hovering overtop of her concernedly.

"Are you alright, love?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she lied, trying to ignore the sadness creeping back in and threatening to ruin her personal celebration. "Look it's getting dark. Tomorrow is another day`and, frankly, I just don't have it in me to do anymore work tonight. I'm just gonna... sit by the fire and try to fall asleep."

"Okay," Nik replied, evenly, like he could there was still something heavy weighing on her mind. He stood behind a few feet away while she hoisted herself up and made her way back over to her small fire.

Turning around, Caroline spared him an uncomfortable glance. He just looked so _sad_ and helpless and defeated.

She groaned, seriously questioning the decision she was about to make. She had an uncomfortable feeling that the more she interacted with this imaginary Nik, the farther she was losing herself to her own insanity.

That didn't stop her, though, when she finally called out, "Will you sit with me?"

Immediately, his entire demeanor shifted, from his slumped posture to anxious features. His stance brightened and he broke out into a wide boyish smile.

"Of course, it would be my pleasure," he replied, with just a subtle enough of a touch of salaciousness to send a quick spark shooting straight through Caroline's system.

* * *

 _Oh, I don't need your help, Kol! You don't know what you're talking about, Kol! Niklaus can act however he wants, Kol! I know best, Kol!_

Kol couldn't help but let a grin as he watched Bonnie take the slightest step back in hesitancy the moment Klaus had begun railing at her. They'd come into the room ready to get started on whatever tasks Nik would have for their second day but, of course, Nik had other plans.

"Kol!" he had immediately launched in, "You were supposed to brief me with whatever you'd found on the hotel security footage _hours ago_!"

"Well, dear brother, other than the typical comings and going of a regular hotel guest, I'm afraid I only found two other points of interest," Kol began, in his typical frustratingly evasive way.

"Why not start with those then?" he asked, his voice sarcastic but holding no traces of true mirth. Anyone looking at Klaus could see that he was the portrait of rage currently, not willing to deal with _any_ bullshit while he had this much on his mind.

Klaus had been pacing so intensely in Caroline's former suite when they entered, that Bonnie was honestly surprised he hadn't worn a trail into the carpeting. His hair was disheveled, like he'd run his hands through it several times every few minutes. And his eyes were so frenzied that, if he weren't an immortal vampire unaffected by these types of things, Bonnie would have sworn they were bloodshot and sleep deprived.

"Well, while I _could_ have given you this particular information a bit earlier," Kol replied, "It just so happens that our lovely Miss Bennett could have told us over a day earlier herself!"

Immediately Klaus's pacing stopped as he flipped his attention back onto Bonnie.

" _What. Is. He. Talking. About?"_ Klaus demanded in a deadly quiet voice.

"I said I didn't need your help, not to throw me under the bus, asshole!" Bonnie shot at Kol immediately.

"I wasn't throwing you under the bus! You made it _abundantly_ clear that _you'd_ prefer to be in charge right now!" Kol replied, in his most practiced tit-for-tat voice.

"Oh, really? _That's_ what you got out of that conversation? You know, for someone as old as you, you sure manage to act child most of the time-"

" _Shut up both of you!"_ Klaus bellowed, finally losing his last shred of patience and making a group of hybrids noticeably jump behind him where they'd been scouring a map of the resort and surrounding island. "No more games. No more arguing. If you want me to find Caroline, you'll tell me everything you know, now."

And the unforgiving demand in his tone was so harsh that Bonnie finally had the good sense to show a bit of hesitancy and take a step back. Maybe she wasn't truly _scared_ of Klaus but she also wasn't particularly enjoying the full brunt of his anger. That was when Kol had started to become smug.

But as Bonnie finally let the story of Caroline's two hook-ups unfold, they both of their feelings begin to shift. As Bonnie watched Klaus's eyes begin to grow more and more hurt, but also concerned, she couldn't ignore the wave of empathy threatening to overtake her again. She'd _never_ had any room for compassion for the Mikaelson's in her heart before now and she could only attribute the change in her feelings to the fact that they'd been the _only_ ones to jump immediately back into her and Caroline's lives the second the going got too rough. Perhaps she's underestimated them, as Caroline had more than once tried to intimate to her over the past four or so years.

When she finished explaining everything she knew about Caroline's casual encounters, Klaus silently turned to Kol wanting a confirmation on what he'd seen from security. Having to confirm everything and pull out screenshots of the encounters had only been a further difficult task. Watching the big bad Klaus Mikaelson grow increasingly crestfallen wasn't easy for Kol to watch.

Call him selfish, call him a jerk, call him immature… sure, that was all true. But no matter how hard he tried to project the image that he was, Kol wasn't truly heartless.

Alright, time to stop pissing around and actually buckle down and find this girl. God only knew what his once great family might become if Klaus fell into a despair over losing her, after all.

Not to mention, then _both_ Nik and Bonnie would owe him one.

* * *

 _ **Thanks to everyone just starting this or still with me! Please review! Fav or follow if the mood strikes you. My next update will be on**_ **Inferno** _ **and I can guarantee it will come out more quickly if I can keep riding a review high! :)**_

 _ **Apologies for any typos and mistakes. I really rushed this one out just to prove that I can still work up the motivation to write and then popped it up here. If I get a lot of reviews suggesting I take a second look at it to revise, I definitely will do so over the next day or two.**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**So, so, so sorry for the delay here! This story is not on hiatus, it very much continues… I've just gotten sidetracked with other fun things. I promise I will continue to update and, hopefully, more regularly.**_

* * *

 _ **Chapter 5**_

Curled safely up in front of her fire, talking to Nik — or herself, whatever — Caroline could feel exhaustion steadily setting in. Nik had asked her a lot of questions about school and what she was up to, all of which she answered in great detail to an endlessly fascinated faux-hybrid. Who knew if the real Klaus Mikaelson would have such a genuine and continually involved interest in her mediocre college life? It didn't really matter. Considering that this Nik was just a manifestation of her own subconscious — or something — she was likely just asking _herself_ these own things as a way to focus on something other than the trauma she'd just faced.

Her fire was burning high and bright but, nevertheless, she knew it would burn out before morning hit. So, hoping to avoid anxiously watching the flames descend, Caroline ultimately rolled over in the middle of something Nik had been saying to her to try to fall asleep. He talked for a little while longer, the words of whatever her subconscious mind was making him say flitting only intermittently into her more conscious train of thought.

Eventually, though, as she zoned out with her back to her hallucinated version of Klaus and she dipped in and out of almost-sleep. Slowly, after quite awhile, the sound of his voice steadily dissipated and Caroline was left alone again.

And the second she felt she was truly alone, Caroline finally allowed herself to break down. She wept, long and loud and hard as the fire's intensity steadily receded over the hours. Before she had any conscious sense of what was happening, she had cried herself to sleep. Then, she passed out on a sad pile of sand in front of her steadily dwindling fire.

Sometime after that, Caroline had sunk into tumultuous dreams. Flashbacks of the plane crash mixed with her sorrow over her mother's death mixed with a few scattered memories of Klaus made Caroline jump and thrash in her sleep. Her muscles grew tighter and tighter, clenching in stress in response to the painful images flooding her mind while she slept until…

" _Caroline!"_

The voice was far away but desperate.

" _Caroline!"_

Now the tone was piercing, almost frightening in its franticness.

" _Caroline, wake up! Wake up,_ **now!** "

Caroline's eyes snapped open and she was nowhere near her camp. It was still the dead of night, endlessly dark, and her fire was nowhere to be seen, nor the beach's shore only a few hundred yards from where Caroline knew she'd set things up. Very distantly she could still hear the ocean but it was much farther away, almost sinister in its whispered sound. The haziness of sleep was still unwrapping its tendrils from her senses...

It was _more_ than black out at this time of night but, thanks to her vampire senses, it only took a moment for her sight to adjust. The second it did, it took every ounce of Caroline's willpower not to scream.

She was standing stock-still in front of the ruins again, staring dumbly into the depths of the mine. The ornately carved but pitch black entrance into the ruins led into a centuries' old mine into the mountains, beckoning Caroline to continue her descent. A low and insidious hum seemed to subtly resonate through her bones as she stared into the dark depths of the ancient mine .

"Caroline, get away from there," Nik's voice rang out behind her, sharply enough to break through the fuzzy and still sleepy haze clogging her senses. "Just step backwards to my voice and keep walking."

She wanted to turn around and see him but some indistinctly out-of-it part of her just didn't have the motivation to complete the action. It felt so much more _comfortable_ to just stare at the ruins. Caroline wanted to get closer. She wanted to _touch_ them. That blackness inviting her inside of the mountains seemed so welcome…

" _Now,_ Caroline!" Nik ordered, much more harshly this time.

But the second she heard his imperative order, an unseen force tugged her forward _violently_. Completely against her own will, she fell forward frontward and slid forcefully across the dirt and sand of the inner island, as if something or someone was pulling her. Moving even more rapidly than she could at vamp speed, Caroline ground the palms of her hands into the earth before coming to a halt. She landed on her face, just a few feet away from the mine's entrance.

"Caroline, get up and _run!"_

Though there was a very distinct force compelling her to stay, Caroline didn't need to be told another time. Her fall had finally awakening her enough from her trance to regain her senses. Caroline pushed herself up, whirled on her heel, and vamp sped back to the camp she'd set up faster than she'd ever run in her life. She whizzed past her hallucination of Nik, ignoring his worried expression as she did so.

A few moments later, back before her now dim and barely smoldering fire, Caroline crouched with her hands on her knees, breathing hard. It was more out of fear than any real need for oxygen.

"Are you alright?" Nik asked. Of course, he'd appeared right behind her.

"Yes," she answered, straightening herself as her breaths evened out, "What the hell just happened?"

"You woke up," he said, "Or at least I thought you did… about two hours ago. But it was like you were sleepwalking. And you walked straight back to the ruins in the middle of the island and just _stood there,_ like you were under compulsion."

"It was a dream," she answered immediately, unwilling to consider any other possibility. "It was a dream and nothing else. It won't happen again."

Nik looked at her, very skeptically, "Nevertheless, I don't think you should go back to those ruins again."

"I won't," Caroline replied, "Duly noted, I've learned my lesson… I'm- I'm going to try to go back to sleep now."

"I'll watch you," Nik replied immediately.

"Hmm, fat lotta good that did me last time, right?"

"I woke you up, didn't I?" he asked. "Whether I'm your subconscious or not, I was at least effective in keeping you out of that ancient mine."

"Fair enough…" Caroline considered. "Goodnight, Nik."

"Goodnight, Caroline."

Whether this subconscious Nik knew it or not, Caroline didn't truly sleep another second that night. She only finally allowed herself to pass out when the sun broke the cusp of the sea's horizon.

* * *

The first of Caroline's recorded hook-ups from her vacation turned out to be a bust. Some Scandinavian tourist who'd left the resort and island many days earlier than Caroline. If they _really_ couldn't find her, maybe they would revisit the tall blond character they'd seen on the security tapes — though Klaus already had spies following the guy either way — but, for now, the most focus was on Caroline's second hook-up.

Drigo, the cute porter from a neighboring resort, however, happened to be a local. He'd apparently met Caroline on his night off from a nearby Sheraton.

And, quite unfortunately for him, Klaus was able to procure his address with ease.

Despite his job working at a resort, apparently Drigo came from a _very_ impoverished neighborhood. Winding their way through the ultra-thin alleyways of Drigo's neighborhood, Bonnie realized she was in an _extremely_ dangerous place for most westerners. Thank goodness she was both a witch and paired with two of the most powerful beings to ever exist.

"Drigo Torres?" Klaus questioned, time and again while holding up a photograph, as their group traversed the neighborhood. Every time he found someone particularly suspicious, Klaus would use compulsion.

Typically, vampiric compulsion was something completely and unequivocally immoral in Bonnie's eyes. But in their search for her best friend, Bonnie found herself caring less and less.

So, when they finally ended up in front of Drigo Torres' house without permission, Bonnie didn't feel the least bit immoral. She needed Caroline back and this man might have been their only clue.

An elderly woman opened the door, looking distinctly displeased to see all of them.

Klaus didn't bother breaking out his Filipino. As always, he raised the picture and spoke the name. "Drigo Torres?"

The woman actually rolled her eyes before barking out, "Drigo!"

A rush of frantic, young footsteps coming down the stairs was heard and, then, the old woman left the doorway with disinterest as the younger man from their surveillance footage filled the frame.

Apparently familiar with Westerners, Drigo immediately looked them up and down, unimpressed, before saying, "Ya? What do you want? Why are you bothering my grandmother?"

"What do you know about Caroline Forbes?" Klaus immediately replied and flashed him a picture of the blonde… not just any picture, but a still from the video surveillance that showed the two of them together.

The man balked at the image for a second before looking their party up and down and even checking over their shoulders.

"Maybe you should come in…" he finally said.

After a brief argument with his grandmother about letting these strange people into their home, she'd finally bustled off to her kitchen only to return with a pot of tea for them a minute later.

Once the elderly woman had left them alone in a cramped little living room, Drigo started in.

"I only met Caroline a few days ago," he said, his English impeccable. "I'd been working at the resort for ages but didn't really pay attention to the customers beyond getting money from them… But Caroline was different. She talked to me… wanted to see me once my shift ended."

"And then what happened?" Klaus positively demanded.

Drigo sighed before responding, "I stayed with her that night. Not just stayed but… um… you know?" His English was clearly beginning to fail him.

"I understand," Klaus replied harshly, "Then what?"

"Then I went back to work and we didn't talk…" Drigo said, "Then…"

"Then _what?"_ Bonnie was the one to demand this time.

"The hurricane. She didn't want to stay here. But the airports were closed," he said. "She came to me… asked if I knew any other options."

"And did you?" Kol asked next, as both Bonnie and Klaus waited with baited breath.

Drigo nodded, looking distinctly ashamed and heartbroken, "Yes… my cousin, Isko, he flew planes. I told her… maybe on the right price, he might take her?"

Klaus growled, "Where is Isko now?"

Drigo whimpered, genuine tears glazing his eyes and cheeks, "I do not know. He was gone… gone since the storm…"

Klaus had to restrain himself from letting out a literal roar before striding up and out through the front door. Bonnie shot a look to Kol who immediately shot upwards to help direct his brother and his anger outside. Bonnie remained just to ask a few more sensible questions.

"And you haven't heard from your cousin since then?" she asked.

Sobbing, Drigo shook his head before letting out a shaky "Nooo."

"Have you reported his disappearance?" Bonnie continued.

Drigo shook his head again, "No, he didn't have a license to fly. We didn't want to get him in trouble."

Internally, Bonnie cursed. But her disappointment reflected outwardly too because Drigo looked up at her with desperate eyes.

"I am so sorry," he said. "I am so sorry for whatever happened to your friend."

* * *

 **Reminder that this story is shorter than my other Klaroline fics so not every chapter will be massive. The ending is still planned out the same way I initially envisioned and I'm very excited to get there. Thanks to everyone still interested and please, please drop me a quick note if you're still here! Next update to come shortly but likely not until** _ **Inferno**_ **is updated first.**


	6. Chapter 6

_**-Chapter 6-**_

 _ **M for smut.**_

* * *

It was going to take a drink or two to get through this with Klaus Mikaelson. Not that Bonnie wasn't endlessly grateful to Klaus for the lengths he was going to to find Caroline, she _was_. But the rage the Original Hybrid had unleashed at poor Driggo hadn't been easy to quench.

Upon ending on a tearful apology that seemed to suggest Driggo was fairly certain that Caroline had perished in the storm, Klaus had flown into one of his all-too-typical displays of violence. He'd immediately lifted the poor kid off of his seat by the neck and slammed him into the wall, eyes turning golden. Bonnie had been prepared to throw a heck of a stunning spell his way, but Kol had been first to entangle himself in the frey. He hooked himself in a choker hold around Klaus's neck until he released Driggo, sending all three of them crashing down in the tiny, cluttered home and toppling numerous knick knacks along with them.

This, of course, cued the ire of the elderly woman who had first answered the door, presumably Driggo's mother or grandmother, who came running in shouting in rapid Filipino. Waving her cane over her head — and actually bringing it down hard onto Klaus's back, not that it affected him much — it wasn't hard to get the message, despite not speaking the language. _Get out of my house!_

As Bonnie had predicted, though, the Mikaelson's spoke Filipino and Kol was hollering a string of apologies back at the old woman as he wrenched his snarling brother out of the room. The woman looked momentarily quite surprised to hear him speaking her language so fluently but didn't say or do anything more besides continue to waggle her cane at them threateningly.

"Sorry, we really are very sorry about that," Bonnie said to Driggo, who was still rubbing his bruised neck and gasping on the floor, "But if you can think of anything else, this is where you can find me at the resort…" It seemed a strange gesture, Bonnie thought as she left a folded piece of paper of their table in the center of the room, but now wasn't the time to burn any bridges on their search for Caroline.

And once back in their car and leaving Driggo's neighborhood, Klaus's annoyance with Bonnie hadn't seemed to ebb any either.

"If you're keeping anything else from me for the sake of discretion," Klaus hissed, turning around to glare at her from the front seat, "I suggest you tell me now Miss Bennet, lest we lose your friend forever!"

"That is _not_ fair Klaus," Bonnie volleyed back, "I didn't force Caroline on to that plane! I _begged_ her to wait for a flight after the storm but she stopped even responding to my messages. You saw those! I showed you!"

"One of the _few_ things you deigned to show me, I've had to do most of the legwork here myself," he huffed back, clearly now just taking out his own frustration on everyone else. Bonnie's original statement that Klaus Mikaelson didn't scare her still hadn't shifted; he was just a whiny boy incapable of handling his own emotions like all the rest of them. He wasn't _nearly_ as special as he liked to think and she was just about to tell him so when she felt Kol's hand on her shoulder.

He was rolling his eyes exaggeratedly in Klaus's direction, seeming to say: _I mean, the_ nerve _of this guy, right?_ Bonnie was shocked to feel a genuine smile grace her lips and to actually feel the need to hold back a snicker.

"Nik, you know very well Bonnie's given you all the information she can at this point. She didn't know Caroline had taken this flight, what else can she possibly tell you from here? Nothing," Kol interjected on her behalf. "So may I suggest, that if no one has anything useful to say to one another right now, perhaps we shouldn't say anything a'tall?"

"Fine by me," Klaus and Bonnie both echoed in unison, still both agitated and grumpy with one another. Kol had to roll his eyes again, this time for his own benefit.

But for the rest of the silent car ride, Bonnie would have been lying if she said Kol wasn't flitting in and out of her thoughts. Did he essentially just give them the parents' talk of " _if you don't have anything nice to say"_...? Who would have thought that Kol would turn out to be the most emotionally mature one here?

When they'd gotten back to the main stretch of the resort town, Klaus left them to go start visiting the smaller local airports. And Bonnie had every intention of having the first of those nice couple of stiff drinks all to herself.

At the bar of their hotel, taking only her third sip of a very nice whiskey sour on Klaus's dime, was when Kol followed her in, interrupting any chances at some time alone.

* * *

Lack of sleep or not, after finally dozing off as the sun rose, Caroline wasn't afforded any extra time to sleep in through the day. Maybe only three hours after she'd first drifted off, a morning gust — probably still left over from the storm, it had been unseasonably windy ever since it had ended, making fire building even more difficult — was blowing sand into her face, scratching and irritating her eyes even through tightly shut lids.

Groaning, Caroline rolled over onto her stomach, hoping she could just make it go away and continue getting some much needed rest. Two nights without food now, she needed to reserve her energy…

With that thought, Caroline's eyes snapped oper of her own volition.

"Good, you're up," Nik's voice intoned immediately. "You have to find food. Now. It is imperative."

"My thoughts exactly, pal," Caroline grumbled, pushing herself up from the ground and brushing thick layers of sand off of her clothing. Building that raised platform off of the beach for her to sleep on, as they'd discussed yesterday, hadn't exactly come to fruition. Come to think of it, all she'd really accomplished was starting a fire. Accomplishments came in small doses, apparently.

Feeling suddenly self-conscious — for no _real_ reason, Caroline was painfully aware — she began noticing just how terrible she looked. It wasn't just the crumpled sandy clothes and wind-whisked, knotted hair that was already on the cusp of starting to dread… the tell tale signs of dessiccation were setting in. She'd never been easily identifiable as a vamp with a generally rosy complexion but now, she was starting to look pasty with sunken dark circles under her eyes. It wasn't too bad but she definitely looked like someone who spent a little too much of their time under fluorescent lights and that wasn't exactly how she wanted Klaus to see her.

But, right, this _wasn't_ Klaus. This was Nik. A friendly figment of her imagination. So she stopped self-consciously rearranging her blouse and actually looked at him.

Her already dry throat went dryer. As if Nik hadn't been wearing too few clothes before, he'd taken off that joke of a Abercrombie-model-esque white linen beach shirt to apparently jump fully into the ocean at some point because his blonde hair was wet and mussed and his bare torso had the audacity to actually glisten in the early sunlight. Her eyes traveled down the length of him, promptly realized his pants were still dry, which clearly indicated that he had taken a dip nude or at least nearly nude.

She'd been craving his physical presence _so much_ since she'd landed here — well before she'd landed here if she was being honest — that this view was wreaking havoc on her emotions and desires alike right now. Catching her eye, Nik was smirking unabashedly but that quickly morphed into a frown of concern upon gauging the level of dessication Caroline was already quickly undergoing.

"You have to find food," Nik repeated, "There are some shallow pools that collect beyond the first reef off the island. You can catch fish there."

"Fish? Is that even something that I can really feed off of?" Caroline asked, tearing her eyes off of his chest and looking back towards the beach hesitantly. She was so tired; every joint and muscle in her body was wracked by a dull and persistent ache and thirst ran from her throat to a painful thrum in her ears. "Shouldn't I try hunting some of the birds I've seen around?"

"It's doubtful you'll be able to survive off the blood of fish, yes," Nik considered, "But blood they do have and they're far easier to catch. You can feel your energy draining… you need to give yourself some kind of boost before you try to tackle anything harder."

Caroline nodded forlornly. Truthfully the idea of taking a dive into the ocean seemed fairly daunting to her right now. She'd never been the strongest swimmer in town or anything.

Nik could sense her hesitation. "You can do this, love," he encouraged softly.

Caroline sighed, "Alright well I'm gonna have to take off my clothes, so… turn around." She blushed, feeling both embarrassed and foolished. _He isn't real you dope, he's your own subconscious._

With a grin, "But of course," he replied, and turned around.

Real or not, the jolt of excitement that ran through her in this moment turned out to be exactly what Caroline needed to bolster her resolve to dive into the water.

* * *

Kol was three drinks in and clearly not even minutely tipsy. Being a thousand years old could do that to your tolerance level, though, Bonnie supposed.

She was being responsible. She was only halfway into her second drink and she'd switched from a whiskey sour to the hotel's house cocktail, something with a little tequila but mostly fruit juice. Not that Kol was proving to be quite the asshole she thought he would be, a.k.a. someone not to get too drunk with. He'd come in apparently just to reassure her about Klaus's outbursts which led to Bonnie ranting about Klaus. And dammit if Kol hadn't turned out to be a pretty great listener… with a spot on, hilarious Klaus impersonation to lift her spirits a little bit to boot.

"It's not just about Klaus," Bonnie said, sighing before taking a sip of her drink and leaning a little closer to him at the bar, "My bad mood I mean."

"What? Of course not. Niklaus is an arse but he's a helpful one and loyal. You're upset about Caroline," Kol said.

"It's not even just about her," Bonnie said, hesitating a little. Maybe she was a little tipsier than she thought but she was also just reassessing her opinion about Kol Mikaelson. "The last few years have been tough, Kol. Caroline and I have both been alone for awhile now. It's hard not to feel abandoned."

Kol nodded and thought for a minute before saying, "The Salvatores' priority has only ever been and only ever will be each other. Trust me, I come from a family that puts ' _family first'_ and then some —" Bonnie snorted at that understatement and he smiled, "—But in a thousand years you learn to expand your definition of family and invite those you trust into the fold. I don't really think Stefan Salvatore will ever learn that. Damon did with Elena."

Bonnie rolled her eyes, _not_ wanting to get into the Damon-Elena thing right now and definitely not wanting to waste any more of her time thinking about Stefan-fucking-Salvatore, but she could appreciate what Kol was saying. It was exactly that which had softened her so much to Klaus these past couple of days, Kol too.

"It's true. They were pretty selfish people overall," Bonnie said, now knocking back the rest of her drink and signaling the bartender for another, "We try not to waste too much time thinking about them anymore."

It was her signal to end this discussion, wanting to push away these feelings. Bonnie didn't like feeling sorry for herself; she had never been one for a pity party quite like Elena had. And that made her feel guilty so she shoved that away too.

But suddenly Kol's hand was on top of hers where she was resting it on the bar. "It's alright to be angry about it though," was all he said. The simple statement made Bonnie gulp nervously. Kol had seriously turned over some new leaves from his time in New Orleans. She'd heard rumors of a lot of strange stuff going on down south… and if any of it was true, Bonnie wasn't the only one drinking away sorrows right now.

She surprised both of them by turning her hand so her palm was facing upwards, pressed into his before hesitantly starting to link their fingers. Bonnie's pulse was running at full speed, from what she wasn't sure. The contact between them was warm and comforting and Bonnie was suddenly painfully aware of just how little physical affection she'd received in the past year aside from the occasional drunken college hookup.

Their eyes met and Kol was looking at her with a million questions but also his patented heated gaze. Bonnie felt something familiar — but that had been asleep for awhile now — unfurl inside of her and spread out in a persistent throb.

"Kol… Is that offer to distract me still on the table?" she asked, ignoring the fresh cocktail that arrived in front of her, referencing his words from their plane ride.

Kol didn't break her gaze, "Are you sure?"

Bonnie nodded, "Let's go." She linked their hands together more firmly and stood from the bar, taking Kol with her without pausing for a second thought on the matter.

* * *

Fishing without rods or nets or _anything_ was not easy. Particularly when one was in the throes of desiccation. Vampire speed helped, though, and it was under an hour before Caroline had finally gotten ahold of a slippery, wriggling grey little fish. It was _not_ the most appetizing thing she'd ever beheld.

 _Where the hell did one even bite a fish? Did they have arteries? Everything had arteries, right?_ Caroline had to figure _something_ out though because it wasn't like she could simply cook the fish and eat it. Not that fire starting had been such a great success either…

"Gah! I don't understand the anatomy of a fish!" Caroline cried out in hot angry frustration.

True to his word, Nik had left her alone while she'd made a fool of herself fishing with vamp speed, clumsily flashing at hyper-speed in five feets bursts after fish in the shallow water. After a few minutes of trying, she realized that she was less shy of him seeing her skinny dip and more embarrassed of her horrendous lack of skill. _Tom Hanks was no pro his first few months either,_ Caroline consoled herself before the word ' _months'_ started to ring in her head depressingly.

Now though, she was back in her clothes perched on some rocks near the shore, clutching the fish in her hands. Sure enough, now that she was "decent" — for _who,_ herself? Bah — he reappeared behind her.

"I suggest you just go for it," Nik said, referring to this fish. "You're bound to get some blood. Just think of it as sushi."

He'd at least had the decency to put his goddamn shirt back on, Caroline couldn't help but think a bit bitterly. The earlier stirrings that had awakened in her core were back in full force at the site of him. She pushed the feelings down fairly easy in having to direct her thoughts to the "meal" that lay ahead.

Releasing her fangs was easy enough. She didn't have an appetite per say, not with this slimy thing in her hand, but the effects of desiccation were powerful and her fangs practically sagged out from her upper lip in what was almost certainly an extremely unsexy look.

Piercing its cold flesh, Caroline had to suppress a powerful gag response. Different was one word for it. Sushi was not. Somewhere in the midst of the mostly fishy flavor, Caroline could taste some tiny amount of haemoglobin, and she tried to focus on that as she gulped it down. If she'd had to bet money, she was sure that she looked like Danny DeVito as the Penguin in Batman.

The real problem though was that there just wasn't much of it. Fish were tiny.

"You should have caught more," Nik prodded helpfully behind her.

Caroline was literally too tired to even roll her eyes but the small snack had helped somewhat. _Like eating a packet of crackers on a two-days empty stomach helpful._

"Come on," Nik said, his voice sounding obnoxiously encouraging, "You need to hunt Caroline. It's imperative you find a real source of good blood. Forget about the fish. It's time to catch some birds."

* * *

Bonnie wasn't sure what she was doing but she was sure she didn't care as she pushed Kol Mikaelson backwards into her room's door, their lips locked together. That damn vampire speed of his… Kol's hands seemed to be everywhere at once — grabbing her ass or trailing them up and down her back, occasionally dipping away to try to haphazardly shove a keycard into the door to unlock it. Bonnie hadn't given him hers and then remembered that he'd compelled his own and was too distracted to even be annoyed about it. At this moment, in fact, it was rather convenient.

Eventually, Kol had taken it all into his own hands, picking her up, unlocking the door, and speeding them to her bed before Bonnie had time to register any of it.

His hands tugged impatiently at her top, an insistence that might have annoyed her with anyone else but somehow now just seemed very wonderfully Kol. That thought struck Bonnie with the realization that she wouldn't just be doing this with anyone. She needed a distraction right now but Bonnie was stronger than that when it came to her coping mechanisms. She was doing this because she actually _wanted_ to be doing this, _with Kol._

So in return, she pulled impatiently right back at the waist of his jeans, releasing an honest to god laugh as she did. Kol's eyes flashed with mirth at the sound and he let out a playful growl before biting into her shoulder with his blunt human teeth and she began to pull down his pants. He'd gone into this with her excited and willing, obviously, but also with some hesitation sensing that she might become even more wary of him in the aftermath of sex. But the way they fell into such an easy and familiar rhythm with one another made him wonder if perhaps Bonnie was just finally opening up to him after all.

Pants off, shirts forgotten, and Bonnie's panties hastily torn, they both gasped when Kol thrust into her for the first time. Bonnie locked her legs around him in a vice, her body singing out in a pleasure that hadn't bloomed for some time. _Fuuuuck she had needed this._

"God Kol, _fuck me!"_ she cried out.

He smirked before leaning into her to kiss her while his hips rotated in torturously slow circles, teasing her. Kol's chest was pressed flush against Bonnie's own and he could feel her nipples peaking hard against his skin. Endlessly aroused by this beautiful young witch, Kol felt himself grow impossibly harder and he stopped his game, slamming into her with abandon, seeking the spots that made her beg for him.

" _Fuck, Bonnie!"_

Leave it to a Bennett witch not to allow him to gain any kind of upper hand. He'd all but lost his control when her walls clenched tightly around him, intentionally it would seem, since sh outright laughed up at him as she did so. He couldn't help but laugh with her; he was growing _exceedingly_ fond of this woman… a for just the briefest of moments, it did dawn on Kol that could be dangerous.

The thought didn't linger, luckily. Neither of them were apparently the type to sour a good mood unnecessarily. Doubts, worries, and insecurities be damned — Bonnie was having _fun_ with Kol and she hadn't had any fun in far too long.

Bonnie gasped and her nails raked down Kol's back, her heels grinding into his ass, when he reached a hand between the two of them to rub rapid circles around her clit. It wasn't teasing and it wasn't patient. Tension pooled hot and tight like lava straight to point where Kol was messaging her and Bonnie _panted_ as if she was in heat on the edge of release. _Fuck he was good._

"I've been patient long enough," Kol groaned, pushing himself up just enough to watch her as she came but breaking no contact between them, "I want to see you come Miss Bennett. _Now."_

She almost would have sworn she was compelled, that's how quickly her body obeyed his command. With one more practiced flick from Kol, Bonnie lost herself in the kind of shattering orgasm she'd heard about but never experienced before. And to be honest, she had sort of been beginning to suspect didn't actually _exist._

God. Bless. Kol. Mikaelson. For coming along to prove her wrong.

Not that she'd _ever_ admit that to his cocky ass.

Kol watched her with surprisingly affectionate eyes, adoring how she lost all control and writhed in near contortion around him as she came. Feeling her legs slide up and down his torso as she somehow managed to ride him even as she was pinned underneath his fram, Kol was quick to follow her into bliss. He came with her name on his lips and his forehead pressed into the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent and the smell of their sex around them.

For just a moment, they both stilled and sighed into one another, panting while the waves of their pleasure rolled back.

And for just a moment, Kol worried that Bonnie might pull away, claim it was all a mistake, force him out and retreat. Instead…

"Please tell me you'll be ready to do that again soon," Bonnie requested, nipping playfully at his neck and then licking a soft path down to his collarbone. Kol actually _shuddered_ in delighted response which was something he couldn't remember a woman eliciting from him in a _long_ time.

Growing hard already, "Oh darling," he said, pulling out of her only to flip her around to take her from behind, relishing in her playful squeal, "I plan on doing this as many times as you'll let me."

* * *

Apparently spontaneous napping was also part of the early stages of dessiccation. At least it was for Caroline. After quickly snatching up and killing some sand crabs for bait, Caroline had laid the most make-shift of traps for some birds. Specifically, a pile of dead crabs and her hiding out with a rock, as still as possible about a hundred feet away.

But holy hell being stone still _and_ staying awake was a daunting task. Caroline had requested Nik's help in this endeavor. The birds could hear her but not him and surely he could help her stay awake, right? But listening to Nik prattle on — about survival techniques and the like, mostly; turned out that Nik was primarily useful as a sounding board for _her_ — was largely the same as listening to her own inner monologue… just in a very alluring accented rich male voice. And unfortunately, before she knew it, Caroline felt Nik's words lulling her off to sleep.

 _In her dreams she was by the ruins. Nik was beside her and their hands were entwined. She could feel him, really feel him. He was there with her._

" _It's beautiful down there, beneath the island, Caroline," Nik was saying, his words dripping like exoctic honey. She felt her core clench in need. "Let me show you."_

 _But next he was kneeling in front of her. She hadn't realized they were both naked but they were. In the lush jungle before her, his hands swept up her inner thighs only to part her sensitive lips. Caroline cried out his full first name, when his tongue swept over her clit, stroking her so softly she might have split from pleasure._

 _He hoisted one of her legs across his shoulder to allow himself better access and her hands came to tangle through his golden hair, using his head to support herself. Niklaus didn't seem to mind as he continue to glide his tongue through her sweet folds, dipping his tongue in and out of her._

 _Just as she was on the verge of cumming, Klaus stopped and looked up at her expectantly._

" _Let me take you beneath the island," he implored, "And there I can claim you."_

" _Nik no," Caroline pleaded, "I can't go down there, you told me to stay away from the ruins."_

" _Let me take you…" he stated again._

" _No, Nik I won't_ —"

 _And suddenly his demeanor is harsh. Nik captures her wrists in a vice and stands up only to hurl her body over his broad shoulder. She tries to scream or to flail but Caroline finds herself paralyzed. And off in the distance, the sounds of bells. Not ringing but tinkling…_

 _Niklaus is walking towards the mine's entrance, the looming blackness encroaching closer and closer…_

But the sound of tinkling bells reaches Caroline's ears for real.

Her eyes snapped open from the nightmare. She was dripping in a cold sweat. Ahead of her, the bait pile of crabs lay untouched. And behind her, the sound of bells again.

She whirled around in shock.

Caroline came face to face with a real life goat. A real life goat with a real life golden bell looped around its neck. It bleated loudly right in her face.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Klaus asked from behind her.

* * *

Not an hour into some well earned post-coital canoodling — which Bonnie was past the point of scolding herself over enjoying — a threatening knock landed on Bonnie's door, waking them out of their newly-coupled bubble.

 _So, yeah, Bonnie Bennett has decided to give Kol Mikaelson a chance, so what?_ Bonnie chided herself in her head as she threw on a bathrobe and headed for the door. If possible she was intent of keeping Klaus in the dark about this for a little longer. The poor guy was so lovesick over Caroline, she couldn't help but feel a little guilty for hooking up and feeling happy.

But he already knew, apparently.

"Get ready, both of you, and meet me in the lobby," Klaus hollered at them from the otherside of the door before Bonnie could open it. "We've found the path of the pilot from a local airfield, we're going out with the coast guard in twenty minutes!"

She waited until Klaus's footsteps had retreated before she turned around to Kol who was diligently scooping up his clothes from around the room, tossing her her own pants in the process.

"The coast guard?" Bonnie asked, sounding impressed.

"Never underestimate, Klaus," Kol said, pulling his shirt on. "It'll be NASA next."

"NASA?" she laughed, he had to be exaggerating.

One very serious look thrown her direction was enough to ensure her it wasn't. "I'll be more surprised if he isn't using them already, Klaus has connections everywhere."

"Crap… I didn't realize," Bonnie said, "I guess I thought his power mostly extended within the supernatural realm."

"Please, with our kind of money?" Kol asked. "You really don't think Niklaus has several different routes to compel himself straight into the White House and at the President's side if he so desires?" Kol laughed. "If none of our witches, even entire covens, can't use a locator spell to find our girl then Klaus will be forced to think outside the box, so to speak. Human technology is rarely more effective than supernatural powers but, it seems we've stumbled upon the rare case where witchcraft won't suffice. Klaus is going to want access to satellite images next. Alright, ready?"

In fact, sort of mesmerized by the world-mafia level power of the people she was now apparently _romantically_ entangled with, Bonnie still hadn't shed her robe.

"Chop chop!" he ordered with a smirk before placing a hand on either side of her face and planting a smug kiss on her.

And then he _actually_ goosed her.

* * *

 **Excited to be getting back into this one. I'm hoping to finish it up in not too many months. I've mentioned before I see it being only ten or so chapters and they're not massively long like some of my other stories.**

 **Any alluded Kol-New Orleans stuff is purposefully vague and won't be gone into much more. Most Original-plotlines will be glossed over here because it's just very beside the point. Not to mention so much of this is AU already anyway.**


End file.
